Good afternoonLagos

Ridwan Kasim · Senior Software Engineer

Backends that ship, scale, and stay up.

I design distributed systems, APIs, and platform integrations, from multi-country payroll across Africa to security workforce software used by thousands of agencies worldwide.

See the work Résumé
Illustrated portrait of Ridwan Kasim smiling, in an orange polo
what I'm up to
  • Co-founder, GathrFundraising, end to end
  • Open sourceSymfony AI, PHP MCP SDK & more
Years building
8+
Industries
4
Subscriber growth
30%
Startup co-founded
1
Aboutthe short version

I care about what happens after launch.

Eight years across payroll, security workforce management, fintech, and developer tools, mostly in the parts of a product users never see but always feel.

I'm a senior software engineer, speaker, and technical writer based in Lagos. At SeamlessHR I built payroll systems running across several African countries and later led the team behind its public API and connectors marketplace. At Trackforce I shipped features for a platform used by thousands of security agencies. Now I'm co-founder of Gathr, where I own everything from architecture to deployment.

I care about reliability, developer productivity, and AI-assisted engineering, and I mentor engineers through reviews and pairing. Clarity over cleverness, boring reliability over heroics.

things I work with daily
LaravelSymfonyPHPGoTypeScriptNode.jsVueNuxtMySQLPostgreSQLRedisDynamoDBAWSDockerGitHub ActionsSentryDatadogPestClaudeCodex
01

Distributed systems

Microservices, event-driven architecture, APIs, and the infrastructure that keeps them dependable.

02

Integrations

Paystack and Stripe, SSO over OIDC and SAML, and ERPs like Dynamics, NetSuite, and QuickBooks.

03

Engineering leadership

Technical direction, code quality, hiring, and mentoring engineers across teams and time zones.

based inLagos, NigeriaWAT · UTC+1 · working remotely worldwideBSc, First Class Honours · Tai Solarin University of Education
Workswipe, or use the arrows

Things I've shipped.

Gathr homepage01Product

Gathr

A fundraising platform I co-founded and built from concept to production: campaign creation, donor payments, and the operational infrastructure behind them.

CrowdfundingIdentity verificationMulti-currency paymentsReporting
Gatekeyper homepage02Proptech

Gatekeyper

Access, payments, and communication for gated estates. I built estate management workflows and versioned mobile APIs for residents and facility managers.

Multi-tenantVisitor access controlDuesSecurity
Cordily homepage03Healthtech

Cordily

SpringSoft, the healthcare software behind Springtide HMO, running on Cordily’s connected platform for learning, healthcare, and business procurement.

HealthcareClaimsCapitation
MailCheckr homepage04Developer Tooling

MailCheckr

Email verification infrastructure: syntax, DNS, disposable-domain, role-account, SMTP, and catch-all checks behind one API.

Email verificationAPISMTPDeliverability
Futro homepage05Product

Futro

Football arena management: run knockout cups or round-robin leagues, record match events, and share player leaderboards and live standings.

TournamentsLive standingsPlayer stats
Experiencefour stops, one throughline

Where I've made an impact.

  1. 01

    Gathr

    Co-founder & Software Engineer

    Co-founded and built a crowdfunding platform from concept to production, owning architecture, deployment, and technical strategy.

    • Identity verification, campaign creation, donations, and reporting
    • Local and foreign-currency payments through Paystack and Stripe
    • Cloud infrastructure, monitoring, and platform reliability
    LaravelVue 3TypeScriptRedisDockerDigitalOcean
    Jun 2026 — Present
  2. 02

    Gatekeyper

    Full Stack Engineer

    Built a multi-tenant estate-management platform covering residents, visitor access, subscriptions, estate dues, and wallet settlements.

    • Versioned REST APIs with Laravel Sanctum for the mobile app
    • Payment integrity across fees, webhooks, and wallet settlement
    • Role- and tenant-scoped authorization for every estate user
    LaravelInertiaVue 3HorizonPest
    Apr 2026 — Aug 2026
  3. 03

    Trackforce

    Senior Backend Engineer

    Shipped features for a security workforce platform serving thousands of security agencies worldwide, including Securitas.

    • Runsheet management with multiple runsheets per shift
    • Automatic region management for Securitas job dispatch
    • Post orders shared across zone and multi-site sub-sites
    PHPSymfonyAnsibleDocker
    Jun 2024 — Apr 2026
  4. 04

    SeamlessHR

    Technical Lead & Senior Backend Engineer

    Grew from senior backend engineer to technical lead, building payroll and HR products that supported a $10M Series A and expansion across Africa.

    • Supported the expansion into Kenya and Ghana, contributing to about 30% subscriber growth
    • Led the launch of the public API and the third-party connectors marketplace
    • Built an all-in-one SSO package for Google, Microsoft, Okta, OneLogin, and JumpCloud over OIDC and SAML
    • Integrated Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle NetSuite, and QuickBooks for payroll journals and ledger reporting
    • Mentored engineers and helped hire across multiple teams
    LaravelNode.jsTypeScriptAWS LambdaDynamoDBMySQL
    May 2021 — Jan 2026
Full résumé
How I workthe boring parts, done well

Not just code: systems you can trust.

01

Understand the system

Before any code, I map the data, the failure modes, and who depends on what. Most bugs are decided in this step.

02

Design for the boring day

Clear contracts, idempotent operations, sensible retries. The goal is a system nobody has to think about at 2am.

03

Ship, observe, tighten

Release in small pieces, watch real traffic, and fix the edges people actually hit.

Stackright tool, not the trendy one

What I build with.

Languages

01
PHPGoJavaScriptTypeScriptSQLPython

Backend

02
LaravelSymfonyNode.jsREST APIsServerless

Frontend

03
VueNuxtInertiaLivewireAlpineTailwind CSSshadcn

Databases & caching

04
MySQLPostgreSQLDynamoDBSQLiteRedis

Cloud & DevOps

05
AWSDigitalOceanLaravel CloudAzureDockerBash

Testing, CI & observability

06
PHPUnitPestTDDGitHub ActionsCircleCIDatadogSentryGrafana

Architecture

07
MicroservicesMonolithsEvent-drivenDistributed systems

Integrations

08
PaystackStripeSSO: OIDC & SAMLDynamicsNetSuiteQuickBooks

AI & productivity

09
ClaudeCodexLLM-assisted development
Beyond the buildsharing what I learn

Writing, open source & speaking.

Notes from the field

Articles on Laravel, integrations, mobile development, and the lessons behind real implementations.

Read on DEV

Build in the open

Contributor to projects across the PHP and Laravel ecosystem, plus SDKs of my own.

PHP MCP SDKSymfony AILaravel.ioLaravel OpenRouterFind A PRFast Excel
Explore GitHub

On stage

Speaker at the maiden edition of API Conference Lagos, and always happy to talk APIs, integrations, and engineering in practice.

got a hard problem?

Let's build something that lasts.

Backend roles, integration work, and product collaborations. I usually reply within a day.

[email protected]
Send an email Connect on LinkedIn